The beach is buzzing with talk and activity as the GTA's eastern communities dig in to the task of improving their waterfronts.

Ajax has started cleaning debris from its beach as part of efforts to bring back a thriving waterfront. Resident Yan Brumwell, right, and her daughter Olivia enjoy a walk recently on the shoreline trail with visitor Yinna Zhong.

By:Carola VyhnakUrban Affairs Reporter, Published on Fri Feb 18 2011

On a chilly winter afternoon, Yan Brumwell’s thoughts turn to sun and sand as she walks 3-year-old daughter Olivia along the waterfront in south Ajax.

“In the summertime I love to take her to the beach two or three times a week,” she says. “It’s very pretty here.”

The town already has a head start on summer as excavators dig up chunks of decades-old concrete and other debris in the first stage of a beach makeover. The shoreline improvement that’s getting off the ground is part of a major push by the GTA’s eastern communities to revitalize their piece of Lake Ontario’s waterfront.

It’s all about making the most of a treasured natural resource, says Jeff Stewart, Ajax’s manager of environmental services. “The last thing we want to do is pave over the area with parking lots.”

“The waterfront’s a wonderful asset but it will have to be developed and managed appropriately,” adds manager of parks Steve Edwards in Whitby, where a new study is looking at ways to enhance recreational and environmental spaces.

Residents are promised a big part in shaping plans with public meetings planned in both towns and in neighbouring Oshawa, which is digging in to its much-anticipated waterfront master plan.

“We have this fantastic resource and council has clearly said we want to see people back on the beach, making sandcastles, swimming in the water,” says Stewart. “This is an asset everyone has a stake in.”

“Pickering is nicely done with a park right near the water, a boardwalk and two ponds with ducks and geese and swans,” the Ajax resident says. “It would be nice if Ajax would widen the beach and maybe build a boardwalk into the water.”

Anchored at either end by coastal marshes, the six-kilometre shoreline will be upgraded in partnership with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. A strategy is expected to be unveiled this spring as a new piece of the town’s five-year-old waterfront management plan.

Once home to fancy resorts in the 1800s and a thriving cottage community 50 years ago, the beach will be brought back to life with volleyball, canoeing, kayaking and fishing — options currently on the drawing board, says Stewart. Water quality, safety and parking are also on the to-do list, which will be the focus of a public workshop Feb. 26.

No one has to sell Ken Johnstone on the area’s assets as he takes his chi-pom Cody for a midday stroll.

“We feel we’ve been gifted with this parkland,” says the longtime resident and retiree. “We cherish it. My wife and I are here all the time.”

He has a word of advice for project managers: Don’t let the waterfront become the traffic and parking nightmare that plagues Toronto’s Beach neighbourhood.

As Whitby Mayor Pat Perkins pointed out at a town hall last month, they only have one shot at developing their 11-kilometre waterfront.

“We’re talking trails and band shells and reforestation, beaches and parking — that sort of stuff as opposed to houses and factories,” explains Steve Edwards.

Whitby expects to welcome another 75,000 people in the next 20 years and “serving this growing population is going to be key,” he says. “People will want to recreate on the waterfront, absolutely.”

While the area boasts diverse features that include parks, conservation lands, beach, marsh and marina, there is no master plan to guide its development, he notes. That’s the purpose of this year’s study.

Further east, a consultant has already floated such ideas as a butterfly habitat, cricket field and ice-skating facility for Oshawa’s mixed-use site by the lake. The project, which will be discussed at an open house Feb. 24, got the green light with funding provisions and the transfer of 20 hectares of port lands from the federal government last summer.

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